Designers of broadband receivers face several challenges today. One such challenge is presented by the very nature of broadband receivers. That is, in many of the communications systems of today, receivers are required to digitize incoming signals over a broad frequency range. These signals may have very different power levels. For the purpose of this discussion, the term “power level” is used broadly to refer to either the amount of power in a particular frequency band (i.e., power density) or the amount of power over the entire band used by the particular received signal (i.e., total signal power). In addition, a “signal” is defined as the energy within a frequency band that is used to represent information (i.e., “content”) being communicated from a transmission source to the receiver. Accordingly, a receiver may receive several signals, some such signals from the same transmission source, each such signal using a different frequency band, and some such signals from different transmission sources using different frequency bands.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.